The Legends of Literature

The Legends of Literature: The Best Essays, Interviews and Articles from the Archives of Writer’s Digest Magazine
edited by Phil Sexton
ISBN: 1-58297-473-X
$19.99, 320p

Read an Excerpt from Legends of Literature

Find inspiration in the story of how Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, nearly didn’t begin a writing career. Click here to view Kesey’s essay—just one of the many written by your favorite literary legends.

About the Book

For more than eight decades, Writer’s Digest magazine has chronicled the work, opinions, and personalities of the 20th century’s greatest literary minds. At they same time, it has recorded the evolution of U.S. culture itself, through times of war, social upheaval, technological change and more, all through the lens of art.

Legends of Literature brings together the most fascinating of these essays, interviews, profiles and articles, exposing contemporary readers to long lost thoughts and opinions on writing, many belonging to some of the greatest creators of any generation, including:

  • George Bernard Shaw
  • H.G. Wells
  • Upton Sinclair
  • Jack Kerouac
  • L. Ron Hubbard
  • Isaac Asimov
  • Stephen King
  • Orson Scott Card
  • Joyce Carol Oates
  • H. Somerset Maugham
  • Eudora Welty
  • Kurt Vonnegut
  • and many more

Most of these articles haven’t seen the light of day in decades and will be of interest to writers, history buffs, pop culture addicts, and general lovers of literature. There are articles on the craft of writing; intriguing profiles of famous and infamous authors; historically fascinating essays on how WWII, the Depression, the Red Scare, and how the evolution of the film industry affected writers and writing; interviews with bestselling authors; memorials to those authors who have passed; and much more.